Day 13!!
Number 13… unlucky for some. Unlucky for Hunny Pot.
The day started out like every other day. Woke up surrounded by sea!
The sun was warm and everyone was relaxing in the shade. A thought to why our cans of coke weren’t as cold as they had been resulted in Iain’s bunk being taken apart to find the compressors for the fridge unit.
On lifting up his bunk (on the high side) Bill FB said.
“Christ, there’s a lot of water in here!”
Andrew was sitting at the chart table, turned round his face a little pale, but in a calm voice said
“Ok then, we have a bit of an emergency. Let’s get….” Andrew was about to launch the emergency water ingress control plan.
“it’s all bottled” said Bill
A bit of colour returned to Andrews face.
The day went on quietly and uneventful. The last chocolate bar was ceremonially divided and savoured on deck.
With all the fresh food gone, no more fillet steaks, dinner was going to be tinned chicken curry. The thought of which made us all feel a bit down. Although when it was served to us, it was lovely. You can hardly tell the difference.
As we ate dinner, Alan T and Iain trawled their line behind the boat. With little success in the last few days the decided to change lours. The deployed their favourite lour. Northern Lass.
Northern Lass, was a wonderful lour. Her silver squid like body shimmered in the sunlight, and hidden under her brightly coloured skirt where 2 very serious looking hooks. This lour meant business.
Alan T lowered his line into the water, and we all discussed how big a fish would need to be in order to attempt a nibble of Northern Lass. A short time past and we finished dinner. We noticed although the sun hadn’t yet set, the moon was out and very bright, would this help us catch a fish?
Whizzzzzzzzzzz. Something took the line, a lot of line. Everyone cheered and went to get cameras. Whatever was on the end of this line had to be big, it had taken Northern Lass. Alan T fought with the reel.
“it’s coming with us…”
“it’s going the other way”
Whizzz, more line went out. Alan T fought hard with the reel but whatever was on the end was just too strong. We watched, all with our cameras ready to capture the glorious moment, as the rod bent and then the line snapped. The fish was gone, and so was Northern Lass.
We all sat down, and spoke about how disappointed we were. No chocolate, No fish, No Northern Lass, Day 13 wasn’t going great and it was about to get a lot worse.
After dinner we got ready for our night watches. Bill FB and I went on deck at 9 to let Alan T and Iain stand down. Alan and Iain told us what was happening and if there was any traffic about. There wasn’t and the wind was very consistent. It looked like it was to be a quiet watch.
This night the moon was out and very bright, giving us better visibility, which made us feel more relaxed.
Bill and I spoke about how the sea looked as if it was from the movie “The Truman Show” and how were about to hit the edge of the set!!
Just then, in front of our eyes the entire head sail slid down its rolling furlex and into the sea.
That’s not right, we both thought.
I shouted for help on deck and bill went to the foredeck to see what was left of the sail.
The sail was trailing along our port side. Everybody on deck and strapped in, we man handled the sail back onto deck. A headsail in the water is pretty heavy.
On deck we checked over the sail and looked for the problem that had allowed the sail to go for a moon light dip in the sea without our permission. It was quickly established that a shackle had become undone. In las palmas we spent several hours “mousing” all the shackles so they wouldn’t come undone, but there were 2 that had been missed. The ones at the top of the headsail as this had already put up before our arrival in las palmas.
Our problem was made worse, the top of the rolling furlex, where the top of the sail should attach to was stuck at the top of the mast. We launched the head sail in the foil using a spare halyard, but this meant we had no rolling function and would not be able to roll it in if the wind picked up. It would just have to do.
The night then passed without any further dramas.
Day 14
At a 6:30, we regrouped on deck. We needed to get the top of the rolling furlex down.
We prepared for a trip up the mast. Arm pads, knee pads, helmet on. The sea was calm but we knew it wouldn’t be for long. I was hoisted up about 15 feet when the boat started to roll heavily. We had missed our window, the swell was now too big to risk going any further so back down I came.
We tried a couple of other methods to get the top of the furlex down but it was eventually a large jubilee clip hoisted over the top and then pulled down which did the trick.
With the top back down we were able to re-attach the sail and mouse the offending shackles. The Sun was up and temperature quickly began to rise, time to retire to the shade of the spray hood.
Day 13 was a tough day but Day 14 has been going a lot better. We have been able to joke about the previous day’s events… A service will be held tonight for Northern Lass and the reason for the shackle failing is being put down to sabotage. Motive: we had started a sweep on when we are going to arrive in St lucia, so it is thought certain crew members may have been trying to slow us down in order to win the sweep and decide to sabotage the sail. A full investigation is under way and if no evidence can be found we probably still say the done it anyway!
That’s all that has been happening. We are now on the countdown to St Lucia, less than 700 miles.
Update again soon.
Alan
TripupMast